I have a mare that I've trained from the ground up. She a nice solid mare with a good walk, trot, lope, has a wonderful stop, nice and supple, etc. We've been working on our loping, and I'm well aware that somedays training isn't too pretty, and my question is this: Is it bad, to get my hands up and wide to get her to get up and off the bit? She's got great forward motion, I'm just trying to get her rocked back a little more to keep her from developing the habit on getting stuck on the bit.

Let me know what your views are on this.

oh vair oh

10-02-2012 04:22 PM

As a western pleasure person, I can try to answer this framed in what I know. I don't know much about reining. We do take one rein in each hand and lift higher for a more dynamic use of the bit. If she carries too much tension in the poll or is broken in the face, instead of sinking back and balancing through her body, I would suggest opening the hands and getting her off the face by gently flexing the jaw left/right/left/right. Loosen up the tension in the poll combined with serpentines that are straight through the body and tracking up.

I don't have a problem with it because you'll drop when you release. A lot of big name trainers adapt very strange positioning. Just get the ugly out now to get the pretty in the show pen later!

DiamondK

10-02-2012 04:37 PM

Thank you!

She's a very soft mare, and carries herself just how I'd like, but when we start getting into our circles for longer periods of time, I can feel her kind of starting to fall out of her form and onto to the bit. I can right/left/right/left the reins again and she'll tuck her face back in just fine, but I don't feel her rock back. I feel that if I bring my hands up higher to make her kind of 'reach' for the bit for lack of a better term, I feel her rock back more.